By Scott Gilfoid: IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook doesn’t understand the logic of Amir Khan choosing former WBO light welterweight champion Chris Algieri to fight on May 30th rather than someone like himself, who could promise that the 28-year-old Khan would receive a huge payday of possibly as much as $5 million.
Khan shook up the boxing world last Thursday when he made the announcement to fight the 5’10” Algieri rather than a bigger name that could bring something to the table in terms of money and fan interest.
Khan says that he does plan on fighting Brook either this year or in 2016, but he wants to go in different path right now towards what he hopes will be a title fight against WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr or WBO 147 pound champion Manny Pacquiao. Khan obviously doesn’t pick out his own opponents himself.
That job is done by his adviser Al Haymon. Whether the choice of Algieri will work in getting Khan a fight against the likes of Pacquiao and Mayweather remains to be seen. But even if it doesn’t ever lead to a Khan vs. Mayweather or Pacquiao fight, it at least is keeping Khan winning for the time being. If the remainder of Khan’s career is centered on him fighting guys like the class of Algieri and Luis Collazo, then he has a chance of being successful for a number of years until his skills start eroding.
“If someone said to me you can get five million quid, a world title, fight at Wembley with a fight that every fan wants to see, it’s a no-brainer for me,” Brook said via BBC Radio. “He’s fighting Algieri who didn’t win a round against Manny Pacquiao, a feather puncher, not a big puncher. It doesn’t make sense to me. I’m world champion, I’m calling him out, we want the fight, there’s a word title and a bagful of money and it doesn’t make sense that he’s fighting this guy who’s bringing nothing to the table.”
For ages before Brook captured the IBF welterweight title, he was constantly looking to get a fight against Khan. Now that Brook has the title, you would think that his mentality would change because he’s the one with a title and Khan is the challenger. However, Brook is still sounding like a challenger rather than a champion by still chasing Khan for a fight, as if the fight with him would complete him and make him something that he isn’t right now.
It’s very disturbing because Brook isn’t carrying himself the way champions typically do. He needs to let the contenders come to him instead of him chasing the contenders.
“He’s [Khan] said he’ll fight me before but when it comes to it, I don’t get why he doesn’t want to fight me,” Brook said. “Yes, (I feel frustrated), wherever I go it’s always Amir Khan, when are you going to fight him? He knows I’m coming for that chin of his.”
Brook needs to forget about Khan and start facing some quality opposition for a change. He had that one fight against Shawn Porter, but then he followed it up against Jo Jo Dan. There’s already talk that Brook fight Frankie Gavin in his next fight on May 30th.
That fight is like another Jo Jo Dan. It’s interesting that Brook jumps on Khan’s case for fighting Chris Algieri and for not being interested in fighting him, but Brook doesn’t help himself by facing the better opposition. During his entire career, Brook has only fought one guy that I consider a good opponent and that was Shawn Porter, who arguably fought Brook to a draw. I had Porter winning that fight due to all the clinching that Brook did each time he came near him.